Blizzard supported downranking in the past

I am the kind of person that gets offended when someone is less than honest with me. Especially when evidence to the contrary is so readily available. I do not see the downranking nerf as that big of a deal. It'll make the game harder, yes but not unplayable.

But I cannot abide someone intentionally misleading me. It's a matter of principle. Tell me the truth and I can accept that. But don't misrepresent the facts and expect people like me to just follow along blindly.

Blizzard is not being forthcoming with the truth ( That's the nicest way to say it ) and here are only three of the pieces of evidence out there showing that this is the case.


First, the fabrication:

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Q u o t e:


Zarhym wrote:

This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it's a technique that was never quite intended.

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Now the facts:

Blizzard has supported it in the past. The devil is in the details, my good Blizzard peoples. Allow me to show you.


1) If downranking is unintended then why are those spells accessible to the players?

Heroic Strike rank 2 completely replaces Heroic Strike rank 1. A warrior has no access to lower ranked abilities once he learns the higher ranked one. And yet, all lower ranked spells are still accessible once a higher ranked spell is learned. One cannot claim that they didn't intend to program the game this way. Unintended effects of programming is called a bug. Is Blizzard claiming that the practice of downranking is exploiting a bug? No they are not. In fact they cannot because they have supported downranking in two other ways.

2) CastSpellByName() API function

Why have this function require a rank delineation if Blizzard only wanted the highest rank to be used? Hmmm? Why add it at all? There seems to have been alot of programming work going into allowing players the ability to downrank, doesn't there?

3) Why sticky a guide about overhealing and downranking if it's unintended?

Over on the EU forums, the following thread:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=4271898338&sid=1&pageNo=1

It's a Priest guide which covers 5 points. 2 of the points are overhealing and downranking. If Blizzard didn't support downranking then why is the Blue Response as follows:

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Q u o t e:


Wryxian wrote:

Nicely written :-) This thread should be appearing in the Forum Watch on our front page. Also, I’ve added it to the “useful thread” sticky post, here in the Priest forum.

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So as recent as June 10th, 2008 ( when this blue response went up ) Blizzard employees were supporting the downranking practice.




In conclusion, Blizzard has supported the practice of downranking through their purposeful inclusion of accessible lower ranked spells, inclusion in their own .Lua functions for add ons and through their continued support of guides for new players explaining downranking and its benefits. For Blizzard to now claim that this was unintended is a falsehood and I for one cannot stand by and allow them to try to pull the wool over my eyes without standing up and saying," ummmm........no."